California lawmakers unanimously pass Linux exemption from age-verification law

Automated excerpt

California’s legislature has passed Assembly Bill 1856, exempting open-source operating systems from the State’s Digital Age Assurance Act months before the law is due to take effect on January 1, 2027. AB 1856 doesn’t explicitly say that repos aren’t app stores, but a store’s main obligation under the law is to request an age signal from the user’s OS provider and pass it to developers; an exempt open-source OS produces no signal. A later July 1, 2027, deadline applies to devices set up before January 1.

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